Is it time to end lifetime alimony? Massachusetts did it last year. New Jersey’s Legislature is considering a proposal now, and at least a dozen other states are entertaining similar reform efforts.

Hey, a much-noted Pew poll last week told us that 40 percent of mothers are now the family breadwinners. As one woman who worked while her husband stayed home with the kids told The Washington Post, “We showed our kids that anyone can be a nurturer or go out and be a primary breadwinner. Your gender doesn’t matter.”

So why shouldn’t we forget about alimony?

If women are just as capable of earning a living — even a better living — than men, why should men support women after divorce? Yet, according to IRS data, only about 3 percent of alimony recipients are men.

It’s not that simple.

First, most of Pew’s “primary breadwinners” are actually single mothers — so the poll tells us nothing relevant to alimony.

Second, as University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox notes, most married mothers with children in the home either don’t work or work less than full time. So if they get divorced, alimony is the way to mitigate the sacrifice they are making.

As Wilcox notes, “Alimony has always protected the spouse who specializes in the care of the children and the cultivation of the home. And we know that taking time away from the workplace to raise kids is costly in terms of your immediate personal income and your long-term economic prospects.”

The question is how to measure and compensate for the sacrifice. One problem arises from the fact that most states have no-fault divorce laws. We allow either spouse to initiate a legal split without assigning blame to one party or the other. Robin Fretwell Wilson, author of “The Legal Meaning of Sex: How Not to Get Screwed by the Law,” says: “If marriage is dissolvable at will you have a much harder time explaining why the guy owes you a living til the end of your life.”

But when it comes to alimony, it’s only reasonable to assume that the party responsible for the breakup shouldn’t get rewarded. As Wilson explains, “You shouldn’t be able to breach the contract of marriage and get paid.”

If one spouse is cheating or abusive, blame is easy to assign, but modern divorce is often not so clear-cut.

The proposed New Jersey law would limit both the amount and duration of the alimony payments as well as offering a formula for calculating them. Fretwell admits that this will at least have some helpful effect, by making divorce settlements more predictable, instead of leaving everything up to the (wildly divergent) discretion of judges.

In a few cases, men were paying outrageous sums to women to whom they had only been married a short time and who were doing very well themselves.

But ultimately, Fretwell says, if alimony is cut back significantly, “the stay-at-home mom is at extreme risk of being left high and dry.”

For years, financial counselors like Suze Orman have warned women that they should prepare for the worst in their marriages — by keeping assets in their own names and having an individual emergency fund. If you’re less likely to receive alimony in case of divorce, you’ve got yet more reason to pursue that strategy.

But is that the most prudent advice for individual women? Wilcox cites a study done by Bowling Green University researchers showing that couples with separate bank accounts are more likely to get divorced. He says, “If people are fully invested in their marriages — emotionally, practically, financially,” even willing to give up their jobs in order to create a better home environment, then their marriages are more likely to last.

For those women who commit wholly and don’t succeed, alimony is the closest thing they have to safety net. Which is why, Wilcox concludes, “Alimony is a great idea.”